Writer/Director/actor Leigh Whannell creates a surprisingly good horror movie with “Insidious: Chapter 3.” Most horror series, once they are up to part 3, the truly horrifying thing about them is how badly they are made and how much they suck. Not so with this third round of the “Insidious” movies, which makes it more of an abnormality…in a good way.

Stefanie Scott plays a teen who recently lost her mom to cancer, and now she is hearing things and believe it’s her mom trying to contact her. But instead of letting the dead be dead, Scott tries to communicate with the entity she thinks is her mom — but it’s not her mom. A terrible accident has Scott die for a few seconds, and when she comes to life, she will find that she has brought something very evil into her life…a spirit that she nor her family can fight off by themselves.

Coming to their rescue — maybe — is an elderly medium we have seen from the first two “Insidious” movies, played by Lin Shaye. Although Shaye had many encounters with dark spirits in the past, giving her an insight and wisdom on what to do, Shaye is spiritually weakened by a personal tragedy and a direct threat to her life from The Bride In Black spirit. To be successful in helping Scott and keeping herself alive, Shaye must deal with her fears, or else two good souls will be lost forever.

My most memorable, movie moment of “Insidious: Chapter 2” is the scene when Scott, possessed by a demon, breaks off her cast on both legs and starts walking. As Scott walks, the bones in her legs can be heard breaking again! This poor girl…even if she frees herself from the demon, she’s going to have one hell of a recovery period from those broken bones!

Fans of “Insidious” will be very satisfied with this third chapter — it’s almost as good as the first, and better than the second. It has a few cheap scares, but most of the scares are set up well and play up to your fears of things that lurk in the shadows.

After a family (Patrick Wilson as the father, Rose Byrne as the mother, and Ty Simpkins as the oldest child) move into their new home, the haunting start almost immediately. The attacks are focused on Simpkins, leading to his “coma.” Byrne becomes the next target, hearing and seeing so many terrifying things that she is suffering a mental breakdown. Wilson, not believing or not wanting to believe, moves his family to a new home…but the evil entities have followed.

Ghostbusters are eventually called in, and the prognosis is much worse than what the family thought. Not helping matters is Wilson’s skepticism despite all that has happened; but he will need to believe and delve into his past in order to help save his son’s soul…and his own.

One of my memorable moments of this movie is the scene when Byrne wakes up one night to see someone walking back and forth outside her second story windows. Back and forth, back and forth…and then the spirit suddenly appears inside her bedroom and runs after Byrne! This made me jump and go “Oh!”

My most memorable, movie moment of “Insidious” is the scene when the red-faced demon shows up behind Wilson — don’t worry, I won’t mention when this happens. This made me jump more and go “Oh!” louder than the scene previously mentioned. Of all the scenes in horror movies that I’ve seen in the past two years, this one scared me the most.

“Insidious” stands well above the average horror movie; but even this one suffers from using cheap scare tactics (such as extremely loud sounds during the payoffs) in a few scenes even though it wasn’t needed. I do give major kudos to the screenwriter for using a fairly original element in how the haunting started. Bottom line: horror movie aficionados will enjoy “Insidious” and should try watching it alone and in the dark…but I suggest you wear diapers.